This invention relates to building construction tools, and more particularly to tools for the installation of lap siding.
Over the years a number of tools have been designed to assist in the process of installing lap siding. U.S. Pat. No. 1,598,986 to Ping for "Weatherboarding and Shingle Spacer" shows one such device. U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,669 to Jacobsen for "Alignment and Support Tool For Building Siding" shows another. Both of these devices have a member near their lowest point of contact with the wall that fits behind the board that they are using as their reference. In the Ping patent this member has the reference number 15, while in the Jacobsen patent this member bears the reference number 20. In any device with such a member, one board, the reference board for the board currently being installed above, is held apart from the board beneath it while the tool is in use. The tool must then be extricated from between these boards, which leaves a certain amount of looseness in the fit between them after the tool is removed. And, since the points where the reference board is nailed to the wall are now covered by the board that the tool was being used to install, there is no way to tighten the reference board by further driving those nails.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,175 to Stiles for "Siding Hanging Tool" shows a different sort of device, which does not suffer from the drawback described above. While this tool does not have a member that fits beneath the reference board, it instead has a member (5) that fits beneath the board that is currently being installed. When this tool is used, it is only used for the first part of a two step process. In that step the board being installed is positioned and tacked onto that location using the tool, and then the tool is removed so that the nails holding it can be driven in the rest of the way.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,714 to Kelly for a "Siding Board Installation Tool" shows another tool that must be used in a two step process if tight siding is to be obtained. As with the tool disclosed by Stiles, this tool is only used to position and tack the current board in place, then it must be removed so that final nailing can be completed. (FIG. 3 of the Kelly patent shows how loose the current board must be in order for the tool to be removed.)